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Ever since I picked up a slow cooker, I have been addicted to pulled pork! The slow cooker turns out perfectly cooked pulled pork every time that is nice and juicy and tender. What's more is that it is dead easy to make pulled pork given that you can simply put the pork into the slow cooker in the morning and let it work its magic while you are at work. Recently I have been trying new flavours with BBQ pulled pork and while I was enjoying some Vietnamese caramel shrimp banh mi recently, I got the crazy idea to try a Vietnamese pulled pork banh mi.

The first step in creating the Vietnamese pulled pork banh mi was coming up with the 'BBQ' sauce. I particularly enjoy the Vietnamese savoury caramel sauce like the one used in Vietnamese caramel shrimp and I wanted to use that as the base of the BBQ sauce. From there I added some typical Vietnamese flavours including some salty fish sauce, some tart lime juice and some birds eye chilies for a kick of spicy heat. Once I had the BBQ sauce made it was a simple matter of throwing the pork into the slow cooker along with some of the BBQ sauce to cook while I went off to work.

Armed with my Vietnamese pulled pork it was a simple matter of making the banh mi sandwiches. Of course the next step was to make some quick Vietnamese carrot and radish pickles. From there I assembled the sandwiches with the pulled pork in a baguette with lots of fresh ingredients and a touch of mayonnaise. The Vietnamese pulled pork was amazingly tasty with an excellent balance of sweet, salty, tart, and spicy hot. The juicy cucumbers and pickles worked really well with the tasty BBQ pulled pork cleansing the palette leaving you ready to enjoy more of the BBQ pulled pork in the next bite.

Vietnamese BBQ Pulled Pork

Directions:
1. Heat the sugar in a pan on medium-high heat until it melts, caramelizes and turns a light golden brown.
2. Carefully add the water and heat until the caramel dissolves.
3. Add the fish sauce, lime juice and chilies and simmer to reduce by half, about 6-10 minutes.
4. Put the pork in the slow cooker, pour 1/2 of the 'bbq' sauce over it and cook on low heat for 8 hours.
5. Remove the pork from the slow cooker, let cool and then shred with a pair of forks.
6. Skim the fat from the juices, place them in a sauce pan along with the remaining 'bbq' sauce, simmer to reduce to 1 cup and mix into the shredded pork.

Glad I found your blog. I am a fellow Torontonian and I too am addicted to pulled pork and have been experimenting with it since the spring. Slow cookers rule. Our newest take on pulled pork has us making a rub and cooking the pork in a chocolate porter a la Beer Bistro. I definitely will try this.

springwaltz: You can roast the pork in a preheated 250F oven until it is fork tender, about 6-8 hours, depending on the size of the pork. This will give it a slightly crispy edge and if you do not want the crispy edge you can cover the pork while it is roasting.

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About Me

I came to realize that my meals were boring and that I had been eating the same few dishes over and over again for years. It was time for a change! I now spend my free time searching for, creating and trying tasty new recipes in my closet sized kitchen.